Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Endowments and Climate Change (Michael Simkovic)

Public pension funds in New York and California are increasingly considering Climate Change related risks as a criteria for guiding their investment decisions.  The move to consider climate change is driven in part by a perception of insufficient federal action on these issues and the prospect of environmental harm eroding long term performance for a diversified portfolio of investments.

Should university endowments also emphasize ESG considerations?

Comments are open and moderated.  Real names only, please.

Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on the "State of Intellectual Freedom in America" (Michael Simkovic)

I testified earlier today at the House Judiciary Committee on the "State of Intellectual Freedom in America."  A copy of my written testimony can be seen here.  My shorter oral remarks are available here.

An excerpt appears below:

"Disagreement between knowledgeable scientific experts and median political views often do not suggest political bias on the part of scientists, but rather an effort by think tanks, media organizations, interest groups and politicians to inappropriately politicize scientific issues.

For example, the causes and consequences of Climate Change are scientific issues. The likely economic harm from such changes, and the costs of preventing or mitigating them, are also scientific issues. So are the adverse health consequences from air and water pollution or the health effects of smoking. So is the question of whether tax cuts can generate enough economic growth to reduce the Debt-to-GDP ratio.

While scientific questions can have political and policy implications, scientific inquiry should not be politicized. The best evidence should be analyzed with the best methods, and the implications and degree of uncertainty honestly conveyed to policymakers and the public.

But according to scientific experts, many scientific issues have been inappropriately politicized when scientific evidence threatened private sector profits or government budgets. These issues include the causes and effects of climate change, the health risks of pollution, and the dangers of tobacco use.

According to a Pew survey, nearly 80 percent of scientists believe that previous administrations suppressed government scientists’ findings for political reasons. Many scientists worry that suppression of scientific findings for political reasons is becoming more common.

Note that the Pew sample consists overwhelmingly of natural or “hard” scientists in fields such as medical sciences, chemistry, physics and geosciences. Pew’s sample included those who work in private industry as well as those who work in government and universities.

Recently, there have been systematic efforts by some members of Congress to weaken the role of science in informing agency rule-making and increase the role of political actors. Some politicians have also sought to prevent government agencies from collecting basic data about demographics, the environment, health and safety, and the economy, even if de-identified to protect individual privacy.

Today, threats to academic freedom can come from powerful donors, political leaders, and outside pressure groups who sometimes seek to subtly (or not so subtly) influence ostensibly neutral and unbiased academic research to further their own business interests or other political preferences.

The best way to protect universities from undue influence may be to secure and expand revenue sources that are indifferent to or cannot sway the conclusions of academic research. This is analogous to the approach we take to try to protect the independence of members of the federal judiciary or the Federal Reserve."

 

10 Most-Cited Family Law Faculty in the U.S. for the period 2013-2017 (UPDATED)

 Based on the latest Sisk data, here are the  ten most-cited family law faculty in U.S. law schools for the period 2013-2017 (inclusive) (remember that the data was collected in late May of 2018, and that the pre-2018 database did expand a bit since then).  Numbers are rounded to the nearest five.    Faculty for whom 75% or more of their citations (based on a sample) are in this area are listed; others with less than 75% of their citations in this field (but still a plurality) are listed in the category of "other highly cited scholars who work partly in this area."  

Rank	Name	School	Citations	Age in 2016
1	Martha Fineman	Emory University	515	68
2	Naomi Cahn	George Washington University	500	60
3	Elizabeth Scott	Columbia University	500	73
4	Douglas NeJaime	Yale University	415	40
5	June Carbone	University of Minnesota	325	64
6	Joanna Grossman	Southern Methodist University	315	50
7	Mark Strasser	Capital University	295	63
8	Nancy Polikoff	American University	280	66
9	Robin Wilson	University of Illinois	265	50
10	Melissa Murray	New York University	255	43
		Runner-up:
	Jill Hasday	University of Minnesota	245	46
		Other highly-cited scholars who work partly in this area
	Martha Minow	Harvard University	800	64
	Janet Halley	Harvard University	370	66
	Katharine Bartlett	Duke University	280	71
	I. Glenn Cohen	Harvard University	280	40
	Angela Onwuachi-Willig	Boston University	280	45

 

Hoxby (Stanford): Economic benefits of online education may not cover the cost (Michael Simkovic)

A recent working paper by Caroline Hoxby (Stanford) suggests that the economic returns to online education (measured in terms of wage growth) may be too low to recoup the costs of these programs, especially as administered at for-profit institutions.  Hoxby used a fixed effects approach, measuring earnings before and after online education compared to likely earnings without online education.  She found that online education does not boost earnings by very much, and it does not do much to move students into more lucrative industries or occupations.  Hoxby found evidence that most students pursuing exclusively online degrees lived within commuting distance of brick-and-mortar institutions that likely offered higher quality education with better returns.

Hoxby's observational results are consistent with experimental studies that have found worse outcomes for students randomly assigned to online education compared to traditional education.

In previous research, Hoxby warned that the spread of online education could undermine highly selective institutions' ability to finance original research and teaching innovations.  Hoxby wrote: "selective] institutions weaken rather than strengthen their market power in research and original content creation when they increase their exposure on the internet."

Hoxby's working paper has been criticized by groups advocating partnerships between for-profit technology companies and educational institutions to spread online education to non-profit and public institutions.  For-profits have been online education's earliest and most enthusiastic adopters, while private non-profit and public institutions have generally taken a more conservative approach.  The strongest of the critiques of Hoxby's paper is that it looked at returns over the course of 10 years rather than a lifetime.  The present value of lifetime earnings premiums is a more appropriate measure of the returns to education.  

Related coverage: Should online education come with an asterisk? 

Yale Law investigating allegations about Amy Chua's advice to clerkship applicants to Judge Kavanaugh

IHE has some details, including Professor Chua's denial of the allegations.

Think tanks, CBO dramatically overestimated the direct budgetary costs of Public Service Loan Forgiveness (Michael Simkovic)

I've previously noted some of the outrageously implausible assumptions used by organizations with links to private student lenders (such as the New American Foundation, AEI, Brookings, Manhattan Institute, and Barclays) in an apparent effort to portray federal student loans as a threat to the public fisc. Such studies have been used to justify increases in federal student loan interest rates, credit rationing (borrowing caps), and a less accommodative policy with respect to income based loan forgiveness.  

A new government report suggests that these groups may have also over-estimated the costs of Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF).  PSLF is distinct from income-base repayment programs (IBR).  Whereas IBR is intended as insurance for student loan borrowers against relatively low earnings persisting over the course of a 20 year period, PSLF is intended as a wage subsidy to encourage highly educated skilled workers to accept public sector and non-profit jobs and continue to work in them for at least 10 years.  

Early estimates had wildly exaggerated the cost of PSLF, assuming that 25 percent of student loans would be discharged through these programs within 10 years, since at any one time around 25 percent of the workforce works in the public sector.

There are numerous problems with this estimate: graduates transition in and out of the workforce; graduates move between the private and public sectors; not all public sector work qualifies for PSLF. It will therefore take far more than 10 years after graduation for many borrowers to accumulate a sufficient period of time working in qualifying public sector jobs before they can earn forgiveness.  During this time period, borrowers continue to make student loan payments, decreasing the budgetary costs of eventual debt forgiveness.  The eligibility and documentation requirements for PSLF are also stringent, further disqualifying many applicants.

According to the government report noted above, in the first year in which graduates could potentially qualify, only 28,000 borrowers applied and only 96 (less than 0.5%) qualified for forgiveness.  28 percent of applications were disqualified for missing information, while over 70 percent were disqualified because they had not yet met the program eligibility requirements.

The total balance forgiven in the first half of 2018 was $5.52 million dollars. The CBO, relying in part on assumptions advocated by think thanks, had estimated that the program would cost $425 million in 2018, and nearly $24 billion within 10 years. 

While qualifying applications are likely to grow in the coming years, the contrast between the high estimated cost and the low actual cost thus far is striking.

$26.5 million dollar naming gift to University of Alabama Law School

The Alabama announcement here.

Yale's Chua, Rubenfeld now center stage in the Kavanaugh confirmation drama as new allegations emerge about what Kavanaugh likes in clerks

Many readers have sent me this article from The Guardian; some excerpts:

[Amy Chua], who strongly endorsed supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a “mentor to women” privately told a group of law students last year that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s female law clerks all “looked like models” and would provide advice to students about their physical appearance if they wanted to work for him....[She] was known for instructing female law students who were preparing for interviews with Kavanaugh on ways they could dress to exude a “model-like” femininity to help them win a post in Kavanaugh’s chambers, according to sources....

 

In one case, Jed Rubenfeld, also an influential professor at Yale and who is married to Chua, told a prospective clerk that Kavanaugh liked a certain “look”.

 

“He told me, ‘You should know that Judge Kavanaugh hires women with a certain look,’” one woman told the Guardian. “He did not say what the look was and I did not ask...."

 

Chua advised the same student Rubenfeld spoke to that she ought to dress in an “outgoing” way for her interview with Kavanaugh, and that the student should send Chua pictures of herself in different outfits before going to interview. The student did not send the photos....

 

The Guardian has learned that Rubenfeld is currently the subject of an internal investigation at Yale. The investigation is focused on Rubenfeld’s conduct, particularly with female law students. Students have also raised related concerns to Yale authorities about Chua’s powerful influence in the clerkships process.

Why do some college students choose law school over other advanced degree programs? (Michael Simkovic)

The AALS today released a new report, Before the JD: Undergraduate Views on Law School, based on a survey with responses from 22,0000 college students and 2,700 law students.  The report discusses, among other things, the considerations that might drive college students pursuing advanced degrees to apply to law school over other advanced degree programs, when students first contemplate going to law school, and important sources of information and advice about law school and other advanced degrees to which undergraduates turn.

Some interesting findings include:

• Students considering law school are also likely to consider a PhD, Masters Degree or MBA instead of a law degree, but are much less likely to consider Medical School
• Only 15 precent of students considering a graduate degree were considering a law degreee
• Law was seen as better preparation for a career in politics, government, or public service than other options
• Compared to other advanced degrees, students are less concerned about time to completion for law degrees, but students are more concerned about work life balance in law than in other fields
• Debt /cost was slightly less of a concern for a law degree than for other advanced degrees
• Students interested in law school developed this interest early, often even before attending college
• Law was not seen as using cutting edge technology as much as other fields

Most-Cited Health Law Scholars, 2013-2017, inside and outside law faculties

Mark Hall (Wake Forest) and Glenn Cohen (Harvard) have compiled a list of most-cited health law faculty using the Sisk data, but including some folks who do not teach in law schools, making it a bit less comparable to the lists I've been posting.  Also, given the small volume of citations in this field, I wouldn't assign much weight to results outside the top 10-15.